Easiest Way to Create a Lead Sheet

[DonaldM]

I'm hoping someone here can offer some guidance as to the best way for me to create a lead sheet with lyrics. As you all know with the PT Score Editor you can have notes, chord charts and such, but no way to put in lyrics. I've tried exporting to Sibelius First, and yes I can add lyrics there, BUT, for some reason the chord names/symbols are all greyed out. Also, with PT SE, I can select Print, and then use the "Windows to PDF" option to create a PDF, which is what I need. But Sibelius doesn't have a way to convert its format to PDF. If I use the "Windows to PDF" option with Sibelius, then all I get is a blank score sheet and no chords.



I feel like I'm in a catch 22 here. What I need is to be able to create a single staff lead sheet with melody notes, lyrics and chord chart in PDF format the simplest way possible.



It also appears that neither the PT SE nor exporting to Sibelius allows for including the song marker headings. That would be great to have so you could show "Intro", "Verse 1" etc along the lead sheet. If there's a way to do that with either SE or export to Sibelius I'm not seeing it.



Would appreciate some guidance here. Thanks

[DonaldM]

Anyone?


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[DonaldM]

It can't be this hard to create a simple lead sheet with chords. I have a MIDI track with all the notes edited correctly. I've put the chords on the chord line at the top of the edit window. Then, when I open the score editor, I have the notes, but the chords are not matching up correctly in spots! I have some measures where the chord on the chord line on the edit screen, and the chord at the very same measure in the score editor are completely different!! I don't even know where to begin to figure that one out!



Then, I export to Sibelius First so I can put in the lyrics and the chords are there BUT they are greyed out and I can see NO way change that. I can't edit them or move them or anything. I can export to PDF using the "Windows to PDF" option off the print screen, BUT the chords aren't there.



So, I can get chords with no lyrics in PDF off the SE in Pro Tools, (even though some of them are wrong on the SE), OR I can get notes with lyrics but NO chords with Sibelius First!



It simply can't be this difficult to create a simple lead sheet from Pro Tools. I don't even know what to do at this point. But I need to create one for someone else.



Can anyone point me in the right direction?


I tried to get to the Sibelius forum (at the bottom of this forum's page), but to use that I have to enter my Sibelius First user authorization key code (to show I'm a legit user I guess). It says it came in the box with the program. But I downloaded it from Avid and there is NO SUCH CODE anywhere in my account?!?!?



This is ridiculous! I can't get to the Sibelius forum because I have way to enter the magic code that I don't know what it is. So I can't even get help there!



Someone? Anyone?

[jeffro]

Can look into theses issues, but for now since you want to include lyrics please try this and let us know if it doesn't help with the chord display... Open the file in Sibelius, Select All, in Home tab (or right+click highlighted area) > Hide or Show > Show In All

[DonaldM]

Originally Posted by jeffro

Can look into theses issues, but for now since you want to include lyrics please try this and let us know if it doesn't help with the chord display... Open the file in Sibelius, Select All, in Home tab (or right+click highlighted area) > Hide or Show > Show In All

Thanks Jeffro. I’ll do that and let you know. I reported this to the help desk and opened a ticket this afternoon.


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[jeffro]

Cool. Far from a Sibelius expert, but pretty sure it's just an option that lets you show objects for parts, the full score, or both... depending on your needs. Seems like that would explain why it's not printing.

[DonaldM]

Originally Posted by jeffro

Can look into theses issues, but for now since you want to include lyrics please try this and let us know if it doesn't help with the chord display... Open the file in Sibelius, Select All, in Home tab (or right+click highlighted area) > Hide or Show > Show In All

Jeffro - Well, I did as you suggested, only when I select All in the Home tab and right click the selection, there is now "Hide or Show" options. I've gone through the manual looking for something that might indicate what to do, but I can't find it there either. There's a lot about guitar tabs, but nothing about the chord symbols themselves when imported. And there is no mention of importing from Pro Tools at all...which I find strange since going from one to the other is supposed to be a fairly seamless process. There is some mention of exporting to a Sibelius file in the Pro Tools manual, but it doesn't mention anything about the guitar chords symbols directly.



It would be nice if the Pro Tools SE allowed for lyric input...then we could create lead sheets directly in PT and not bother with Sibelius and exports and all that rot! I have a hard time believing that out of the thousands of Pro Tools users out there in the world, I'm the only one who wants to create a lead sheet with lyrics and chords from Pro Tools. It just can't be this difficult to figure out!

[jeffro]

I see it changes depending where you click so... Select All then use Hide or Show up in the toolbar.

[DonaldM]

Originally Posted by jeffro

I see it changes depending where you click so... Select All then use Hide or Show up in the toolbar.

Yes, I tried that too. Didn't change a thing.

[jeffro]

Strange. I opened a file exported from Pro Tools - the chord charts were greyed out so I did a Select All then chose Show In All and they all changed to black. The exported PDF showed the chord symbols (they were missing from the export before making the change).